


The Boy From the East

by Sarcasticles



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, I refuse to believe Sabo never heard of Luffy before the Marineford War, Introspection, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22140883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarcasticles/pseuds/Sarcasticles
Summary: Without really knowing why, Sabo tucked the bounty into his pocket. Whoever this Luffy kid was, Sabo got the feeling he was about to take the world by storm.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 138





	The Boy From the East

Sabo knew something was wrong when he saw the blood on Koala’s hands. 

She was training alone, her opponent the Revolution’s strongest punching bag, which she had hit hard enough to snap off its chain, throwing it against the opposite wall. It sat limply in the corner like a boxer would after a particularly bad round, sand spilling from a split seam. 

Koala just stood there, sweat-slicked and red-faced, panting like she’d just run a mile or ten. And angry. Oh so very angry. Cords of hard muscle rippled and shifted under her skin, tense and ready to hit something else just as hard. Blood dripped from her knuckles, the skin there torn to shreds. She hadn’t bothered to wrap her hands, but after years of dedicated training the callouses there should have been enough to protect Koala from hurting herself. 

_Should_ being the operative word. 

For a moment Sabo stood back and surveyed the damage. He wasn’t sure she even realized he was there, and he’d made no effort to be sneaky. Shoving his hands in his pockets, Sabo sauntered up next to her in a way she normally found irritating, but Koala didn’t so much as spare him a second glance. 

“You know,” Sabo began jovially, “If I were you and you were me, you would have told me off by now for destroying Revolutionary property.”

“Not now, Sabo.”

There was something in her voice that made him pause. An acrid edge of both frustration and fatigue. Sabo blinked, trying to remember the last time she sounded so...down. 

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“It’s nothing,” Koala said. 

“I’m pretty sure it’s something.” Sabo took one of her hands and inspected her knuckles, unable to suppress a wince when they looked even worse up close. “I thought you weren’t supposed to, you know, _touch_ people when you did your fancy karate stuff. Beating things to a bloody pulp is my job.”

He tugged her arm, prompting Koala to follow him to the training room. She let him sit her down, not saying a word while he gathered antibiotic ointment and bandages. Sabo kept half an eye on her while rummaging through cabinets and noticed when she bowed her head, closing in on herself like a turtle withdrawing into its shell. He saw the moment she put on her smile, lips quivering exactly once before she had the expression firmly in place. 

“I’m fine, Sabo. Really,” she said, her earnest tone sincere enough to fool anyone but him. 

She’d told him, once, about having to pretend to be happy for fear of death. He’d never actually seen her do it in person, and he decided he didn’t like it. Not one bit. 

“Uh-huh. And I’m the king of Mariejois.” Sabo set down his supplies before taking a seat opposite of her, bending down low so she didn’t have a choice but to look him in the eye. 

There was a flash of indignation there, which contrarily made Sabo smile. Koala couldn’t pretend for long, not around him. “You might as well tell me what’s going on here,” Sabo said. “You know I won’t stop pestering you until you do.”

“That’s because you’re a tactless _ass_ ,” Koala muttered.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Sabo said, grin spreading just a little bit farther. 

Koala glared at him, cheeks puffing out like they always did when she was annoyed. Sabo chose to use that moment to slather ointment over her hands, catching her off-guard just enough for her mask to crumble away entirely. She fell silent, and a glassy, faraway look entered her eyes. 

Time itself seemed to suspend into perfect stillness. Sabo could hear his own heartbeat ( _or was it hers?_ ), the jagged intake of breath as Koala gathered herself. Sabo could _feel_ the emotion straining within her, like a river behind a dam that was full to bursting. 

Then softly, her voice heavy, Koala said, “I read Betty’s status report.”

“And…?” Sabo prompted. “It didn’t seem like anything too out of the ordinary. The East Blue isn’t exactly jumping with excitement.”

“You read about that new pirate, didn’t you?” Koala asked. “The one with the thirty million berri bounty?”

“Maybe? Like I said, nothing really stuck out as important, except…” Sabo stopped suddenly, jerking up straight as his mind reached the end of his thought faster than his mouth could keep up.

Oh. 

Oh no.

“Did you know that fishman?” Sabo asked. “What was his name, Arlong?”

Koala nodded, and when she looked up at him she looked so damn _tired._ Worn down and weary, back slumped over like she were holding up the weight of the world. “He was one of Fisher Tiger’s officers.”

“Damn, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize…”

“It’s not your fault, Sabo,” Koala said. “I didn’t like talking about him. He was...different than the rest.”

“How so?”

She mulled over the question. “He was...mean. I didn’t realize it at the time. I was so used to the Celestial Dragons he was the only one who made sense to me, but looking back...he was just mean.” Koala brushed her fingers against her cheek with that same vacant expression that meant she was remembering. 

She must not have realized her hands were still covered in blood, or simply not cared when she left a smear of scarlet where her fingers touched. Sabo didn’t know what he was supposed to say, so he just took her wrist and began wrapping bandages around her knuckles. 

The pads of her fingers were rough and calloused, her hands covered in fine, white scars. It was impossible to say which came from training and which were the result of a childhood spent in slavery. 

Sabo’s own scars itched at the sight of them, remembering his own encounter with the Celestial Dragons. Well, whatever passed for remembering with him, anyway.

“Betty says he had a whole empire in the East, and we didn’t even know about it,” Koala said. 

“We can’t be everywhere,” Sabo said. “You’ve told me that, more than once.”

“And didn’t like it any more then than I do now,” she retorted. She let Sabo tape down the last of the dressing and wiggled her fingers experimentally. Then she let her hands fall in her lap, squeezing her eyes closed and biting down on her lip. Tears slipped down from the corner of her eyes, and an attempt at holding back a sniffle resulted in an awkward hiccoughing noise that only made her cry harder. 

Sabo sighed quietly and scooted his chair next to hers, wrapping an arm around Koala’s shoulders and drawing her in close. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say that might make her feel better, so he just held her tight and let her cry into his cravat.

Once, a long time ago when they were just kids, Koala had wondered aloud if it wasn’t best if Sabo couldn’t remember where he came from. He could live peacefully knowing that Dragon had rescued him from a place he didn’t want to be without being burdened by the weight of his past. 

Koala didn’t have that luxury, and he admired that she was able to endure the pain and loss and injustice of her childhood as well as she did, most of the time maintaining an enthusiastic positivity that was infectious. 

That didn’t mean it wasn’t hard, or that there weren’t bad days. The worst scars were the ones you couldn’t see, and there were some wounds that never stopped bleeding. 

“He’s in prison now,” Sabo said once her tears had tapered from a flood to a more steady trickle. “We can send Betty out to investigate the islands under his control, make sure that no one swoops in to fill in the space he left behind. Maybe we didn’t know in time to stop him, but he _was_ stopped. We can help pick up the pieces.”

Koala nodded listlessly. “I’d like that.”

“And next time you want to beat up on somebody, come find me, okay? I’ll give you a better fight that that old sandbag.”

“More satisfying to hit, too.”

Sabo laughed, and Koala managed a ghost of a smile. Reassured that she was going to be all right, they didn’t linger long after that; there was far too much work to do for the both of them to sit around feeling sorry for themselves. 

And later that night when he couldn’t sleep, Sabo revisited that report, committing the details to memory so he could make good on his promise to help those left behind after the collapse of the Arlong empire. Included was the bounty of the kid who did it, some rookie out of the East Blue by the name of Monkey D Luffy. The surname brought to mind the Hero of the Marines, but Sabo dismissed a possible connection as unlikely. There was no way a marine of that standing would let their kinsman go play pirate. 

Sabo did have to admit that the picture made him chuckle. It was hard to believe that a bunch of fishmen had been defeated by a kid with a grin like that, but it was even harder to believe that the marines would give credit to a no-name greenhorn unless there was some truth to what the papers said.

Without really knowing why, Sabo tucked the bounty into his pocket. Whoever this Luffy kid was, Sabo got the feeling he was about to take the world by storm. 

* * *

He was in the field when Sir Crocodile fell. While marines were out arresting one of their own lapdogs, Sabo was busy infiltrating the weapons manufacturer contracted by the World Government to develop the next generation of rifle to be used by their military. 

All went according to plan, and he was able to steal the patent with an acceptable amount of collateral damage. If a few factories making guns were razed in the process, well, so be it. The World Government should have made it harder for him to set their buildings on fire. 

But Crocodile...Crocodile was big news. If Sabo weren’t stuck on the opposite side of the Grand Line he would have investigated Alabasta’s short-lived civil war himself. As it was, he was stuck reading secondhand reports after the fact. The Government’s official line was that Crocodile had been thwarted by some marine nobody, but that interpretation of events held less water than the drought-stricken desert country. 

Revolutionary agents weren’t having any better luck getting at the truth. The monarchy kept their lips zipped tight, and it seemed like no one local had any idea what really happened, other than the crown princess was somehow involved. It was amazing enough that the royal family had stood up to one of the parasitic pirates the Government called Warlords, but the princess was just a girl herself. Sixteen years old and already defending her home against invaders. The Revolution would have to remember that. 

Sabo couldn’t help but wonder, though, how she did it. 

Days later a special delivery marked Monkey D Luffy as the newest rookie to break the one hundred million berri mark, without any reports stating what he was meant to have done to earn such an outlandish price.

“It couldn’t be…?” Sabo mused on his journey back to Baltigo. He kicked his feet up on his desk and stared at that stupidly happy bounty picture, mentally trying to calculate Straw Hat Luffy’s route through the Grand Line. He couldn’t think of anything that would definitively prove that he _had_ gone to Alabasta, but neither could he _disprove_ the ridiculous theory currently percolating in the back of his brain. 

(And when weeks later reports surfaced that Nico Robin, confirmed by Kuma to be one of Baroque Works top agents, was traveling with the Straw Hat Pirates, Sabo wisely kept his mouth shut. Let Dragon decide whether they should chase after the Light of the Revolution, Sabo got the feeling she was just fine right where she was.)

Hotshot rookies were a berri a dozen, usually devoured by the meat grinder that was the Grand Line and shat out as cautionary tales mothers told their children in order to get them to eat their vegetables. Even so, Sabo couldn’t help but take a shining to this one, and hoped beyond hope that he’d somehow survive the ocean that lay ahead. 

* * *

“Did you hear?”

“There’s no way it’s true.”

“How _else_ do you want to explain it?”

The mess hall was buzzing with excitement. Crowds of Revolutionaries gathered around each table, heads bent low over the day’s paper where it was reported that Straw Hat Luffy and his small band of pirates had somehow destroyed the entire island of Enies Lobby. 

“Enies Lobby’s got a garrison of ten thousand soldiers. There’s no way an eight man crew took out _ten thousand soldiers_.”

“He’s an East Blue boy, anyway. East Blue ain’t worth shit.”

Sabo perked up at this. “Hey now! I’m one of those East Blue boys, and I could beat the crap out of anyone in this room!” 

The man who’d spoken went ghost-white and looked like he wanted to melt into a puddle under his chair. “S-sorry, sir. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“No worries, I was just giving you a hard time,” Sabo grinned, “but maybe think a bit before looking down on the East. _We’re_ the sea that birthed the Pirate King.”

“The exception that proves the rule!” another shouted from across the mess. Sabo tried to find who had spoken, but the room was too crowded. Ignoring protests and Koala’s yelp of indignation, he clambered onto the table and stood up straight like a master orator about to deliver a speech, swaying only slightly when he did so.

“You’re drunk,” Hack muttered to himself 

“Lies and slander!” Sabo yelled, not sure if he was addressing Hack of the unknown soul who’d besmirched the East Blue’s good name.

His grin widened. Maybe he _was_ a little punch drunk and giddy with the glorious news of Enies Lobby’s destruction. They’d already sent Karasu’s crows to confirm what the papers told to be true: The government stronghold was a smoldering ruin. Someone -- no one seemed to know for sure if it was Straw Hat Luffy or the marines -- had blown it all to hell. 

Sabo celebrated the news like it were a newly-minted holiday, and maybe someday it would be. But for now he had no choice but to defend the honor of his home ocean against a bunch of nay-sayers who didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. 

“Think about it,” Sabo said. “The Pirate King? From the East. And where do you think he recruited his first mate, the Dark King Silvers Rayleigh?”

“It sure as hell wasn’t from the East Blue!”

“Debatable!” Sabo exclaimed. He wobbled a little bit more, wracking his brains for other famous people who had come from the East Blue. It was harder than he thought it would be, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he was tipsy or if these assholes were right and they didn’t exist. Undeterred, Sabo continued, 

“Our very own Belo Betty was recruited out of the East Blue. Are any of you guys stupid enough to say that she’s weak?”

There were a few hearty _hear-hears_ , and Sabo heard Koala laugh. He turned to look at her, and asked. “And tell me again, just _where_ was it the Revolution found me? I may not remember much, but I do seem to recall being rescued from some backcountry shithole in the East!”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

Sabo tipped his hat. “Thank you. Now who else, I feel as if I’m forgetting somebody important…Oh yes! Everybody’s favorite Vice Admiral, the Hero of the Marines himself is _infamous_ for his little vacations to the East Blue. How else would we Revolutionaries get anything done if _that_ monster didn’t let us alone every once in a while, eh?”

There were a few more cheers, and more than one person shouting that he’d made his point already and to let them enjoy their breakfast, but Sabo wasn’t done. Reaching down, he found the bounty of Monkey D Luffy and thrust it in the air for everyone to see. 

“And most importantly of all, friends, Straw Hat Monkey D Luffy hails from the East! If he were here today I’d kiss his feet and welcome him as my brother, but since he’s not, a toast in his honor. To Monkey D Luffy, saving the world, one random act of destruction at a time!”

Sabo picked up a drink and chugged it in three large gulps, not realizing until he was half-way through that it didn’t belong to him. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything except that Enies Lobby was gone and pirates had done it. For the first time in years he felt like he could see the cracks forming in the World Government, weaknesses the Revolution could exploit to turn the tide of their seemingly never-ending battle. 

What Straw Hat Luffy had done was insane, but the world needed a little bit of crazy if they had any hope of overthrowing the Celestial Dragons and the corrupt system that secured their power. 

* * *

While the world watched the execution of Portgas D Ace, the Revolution was at war. 

Not at Marineford. Not over the fate over a single pirate. Not even to influence who would rule coming age. 

No, the Revolution’s war went beyond pirates and marines. They aimed higher, seeking to cut the strings the Government’s puppet masters used to make the whole world dance. Nothing would change if they didn’t attack the source of corruption, the black hole that sucked in any good intentions individual rulers might have and twisting them into a perverse imitation of law and justice. 

They chose their targets carefully, identifying a dozen islands across the Four Blues and the Grand Line that were of political, economic, or military significance to the World Government. They were places that the Revolution believed that they could not just liberate, but _keep_ liberated no matter which side won the Battle of Marineford. 

All victory demanded sacrifice, and they had already paid a steep price for this opportunity. Kuma, mind-wiped as part of his agreement with Vegapunk. Ivankov, imprisoned for giving asylum to enemies of the World Government. 

Sabo wouldn’t let their sacrifice be in vain. 

“Ready?” he asked Koala, gazing up at the towering castle that, should all go well, would be in their hands by early that afternoon. 

Koala adjusted her gloves, a look of fierce determination in her eyes. “Always.”

* * *

It was ironic, in a way, that Sabo remembered very little of the events after the Paramount War, when a single newspaper clipping managed to tear down the walls his mind had built up all those years ago. Remembering almost killed him. It forced him to go back to a place he never wanted to be, remember the family that had never wanted him. 

And the brothers who did. 

Dragon always presumed Sabo had been some boy from Goa’s noble class, a high-born son who saw the rot that surrounded him with a child’s eyes, too young to be corrupted by it, but powerless to try and stop it. Sabo never had any reason to think there had been anything more. So what if he had the flawless penmanship of an educated man, or that his body knew the steps of a ballroom dance without ever being taught? None of it mattered, except it made it easier to infiltrate the upper class in the same way Koala’s time as a slave made her perfect to play the role of a servant when the need arose. 

But there _had_ been more. Sabo’s intuition, thought to be some innate talent, had been borne of countless hours learning to read his father’s unpredictable temper and careful study of the people who lived in the trash heap outside Goa’s walls. A wrong move in either of the worlds Sabo inhabited would have meant death or imprisonment, something neither Ace nor Luffy seemed to grasp, and so Sabo had taken it upon himself to learn enough for the three of them. 

He had been the _sensible_ brother. The _responsible_ brother. The one who encouraged Luffy as he learned to pull his own weight and talked Ace out of his most dangerous moods. 

Koala would have laughed in Sabo’s face if he ever told her, but he didn’t. It was too personal, the jagged edges of his soul knitting imperfectly with the newfound memories into a scar that was as raw and painful as the one on his face. 

He hadn’t been there when Ace died. He hadn’t been able to protect Luffy, who despite his new-found infamy was still very weak in the grand scheme of world powers and politics. 

When he was alone, Sabo would pull his brothers’ bounties out of his pocket. He would stare and stare and stare at each detail and imperfection until his heart _ached_ with regret for what he had never known. 

Sabo understood now why Ace had always been so adamant that they live without regrets. It was one thing to try and fail; it was quite another to never be able to try at all. 

And sometimes, late at night when he’d memorized for the hundredth time every inch of those crumpled bounties and cried himself dry in the process, Sabo would wonder what could have been, grief giving way to anger and despair when he realized that he would never have the chance to find out. 

* * *

“You know, you could just _talk_ to her, right?”

Sabo’s eyes never left Nico Robin, tracking her as she walked through the mess holding a cup of coffee in one hand, the day’s paper in another, and a plate of toast in a third that she’d conjured out of thin air, startling the cooks in the process. 

“Sabo? Did you hear me?”

“Mmhmm.”

Koala groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose before gesturing in Robin’s general direction. “I told you already, she’s really nice. I’m sure if you’d just ask she’d tell you anything you wanted to know.”

“I’m sure you’re right, but that’s not what I’m doing here.”

“Then what _are_ you doing? Besides acting like some sort of creeper?” Koala demanded. 

“Luffy...Luffy’s not the sort who’s going to change who he is,” Sabo said, pausing to collect his thoughts into something that had some semblance of coherency. “I mean, I know that he took down Arlong, and exposed Crocodile, and punched a Celestial Dragon in the face. That’s so Luffy it hurts. He’s still the same brother I remember, I’m sure of it.” 

If Koala noticed he’d conveniently left out how Luffy went after Ace with the same reckless tenacity that led moths to bug zappers, she was kind enough not to mention it. She looked at Sabo for a moment, eyes squinting suspiciously before looking back towards Nico Robin. “So you don’t necessarily want to know about Luffy, which means...you’re studying his crew?” A slow, wide grin spread across her face. “What are you going to do if Nico Robin doesn’t pass the Big Brother test? _Fire_ her?”

“That’s not it--”

It was too late. Koala was on her feet waving over to Luffy’s archeologist, beckoning her to their table. At the sight of a familiar face some of the harsher lines in Nico Robin’s expression softened, and she changed her course to come sit next to them. 

“It’s so good to see you again, Koala,” Robin said. There was a note of genuine pleasure in her voice, and Koala looked up at her with open admiration. 

“You too. And this is Sabo, he was out doing field work when you first arrived. Sabo, this is Nico Robin.”

“I’m honored. I’ve heard so much about you,” Robin said. 

“You have?” Sabo asked, before shooting a dirty look Koala’s direction. 

Robin hid her laugh behind a polite hand, but there was an impish twinkle in her eye that made him think that she’d heard everything he’d said today and more. With a Devil Fruit like that, there was no reason to think she hadn’t. 

All right then. Two could play that game. Sabo leaned back in his seat, ready to begin his evaluation. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Luffy’s judgement in who he had in his crew. It wasn’t that he was worried that one of them might try to betray him down the line, or that he wasn’t strong enough to lead. It wasn’t that at all. 

What Sabo wanted, more than anything else in the world, was for Luffy’s crew to love him as much as he obviously loved them. He wanted them to be more than allies searching for a common goal, more than a bunch of pirates out for a little gold and adventure. 

He wanted the Straw Hat Pirates to be Luffy’s family, now that Ace was dead and Sabo so far away. 

And the more they talked, the more Sabo’s fears alleviated. Robin was his first indication that his baby brother was doing all right for himself. The former assassin was reserved by nature and difficult to read, even for someone of Sabo’s almost preternatural ability. But even she gave off the subtle clues: A fond wistfulness the few times she spoke of her captain and crew, her resolute decision to return to them after a two year absence, the way she would look out at the sea when she thought no one was looking, an expression of pure longing on her face. 

It didn’t take Sabo long to decide he rather liked Nico Robin, and he hoped one day to be able to meet her again.

* * *

Karasu’s crows couldn’t carry Sabo far. Mere minutes after saying goodbye to the Straw Hat Pirates he found himself plopped unceremoniously on the deck of a Revolutionary ship a few leagues off the cost of Dressrosa. He landed awkwardly on his tailbone, his metal pipe digging into his back as Sabo took a moment to stare up at the clear, blue skies. 

It wasn’t long before a shadow fell over his face, a familiar look of disappointment glaring down at him. “You need to be better about answering your phone calls,” Koala said. 

“I was busy.”

“You’re always busy.”

Sabo offered her a lopsided grin. “One of the perks of being Chief of Staff, I guess. No time to myself, not even to answer my snailphone.”

Koala rolled her eyes and helped him to his feet. “I thought you logia-types were supposed to be immune to falls like that.”

“I need a little bit of practice before I can pull something like that off without setting the ship on fire.” He dutifully bent down so she could put replace his hat on his head. He just managed to catch her eye, and could tell that she wasn’t mad at him. Not really. “Which reminds me, it’s going to be your job from now on to keep me from drowning.”

Even knowing it was coming, her punch _hurt._ “Fat chance, dumbass. Now come on, we’ve got a lot of stuff to go over and not a lot of time to do it.”

Sabo followed her below deck. Once they were away from the rest of the crew, she asked more softly. “Was it a good visit?”

“I let him sleep. Didn’t seem right to wake him after all the trouble he went through beating up Doflamingo.”

Koala looked at him askance. “Are you really okay with that? We could have waited a little bit longer.”

Sabo didn’t respond immediately. There was really no way he could be one hundred percent sure, but with CP0 breathing down their necks there was little choice for them _but_ to leave. And maybe he was a coward for not telling Luffy goodbye, but for some reason it didn’t seem right. Goodbyes were permanent, and he had every intention of seeing his baby brother again.

“A berri for your thoughts?” Koala asked. 

He chuckled. “I hope I’m worth a little more than that.”

”Sabo…”

“It’s okay, Koala. Really it is.” He felt a little surer saying it out loud. There were few constants in the crazy world that they lived in, but it seemed like Luffy was one of them. They would catch up properly another time, exchange drinks and swap stories about their adventures. They’d spar, and laugh, and remember, and, and…

“He’s got a good crew,” Sabo said finally. “Those are the people he needs to be with now, just like I need to be with the Revolution. We’ve all got our part to play in this story, but if we’re lucky fate will bring us together again.”

“You’re sounding like Dragon.”

Sabo shrugged. “Learned from the best. Besides, Luffy’s got to go after the rest of his people soon. I couldn’t get in the way of him and his family.”

And they were family. Sabo had seen that with his own two eyes. There was the way they moved when around one another, dancing to a familiar song only they could hear with Luffy at their center. Sabo could see how they all fit around one another, from Zoro’s stabilizing presence to Usopp’s boyish enthusiasm to the more adult perspectives of Robin and Franky. 

They were a crew that could laugh together and fight for one another, supporting Luffy and each other as they pursued their own crazy dreams. It was a crew that was uniquely Luffy’s, his fingerprint clearly visible on each of their lives. 

Sabo pulled an old, crumpled bounty out of his pocket, the one that he’d held on to for more than two years. It was funny, in a way, how he’d known even then that Luffy would be someone special. 

“All hail to the king,” he whispered to himself, before focusing in on the work ahead. 

  
  



End file.
